My Own Manbag line!
Satire just in time for Black Friday, compliments of creative friends at The High Calling.
Showing posts with label branding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label branding. Show all posts
Klothing Klout
- RNKD start-up guy and Zappos co-founder, Nick Shwinmurn."You and I can both be browsing the same site but would see different pricing and selection based on our current rank. For example, you might have a closet full of Levi's while I have none. When we both browse Levi's the price on your screen would be $72 while I'd see $78 for the same pair."
The idea is that I take pictures of my clothes, tag them by brand and then post them at RNKD. The more of a particular brand I post, the more likely I am to get deals on that brand, like a few dollars off a new pair, or a gift card. Klothing Klout, if you will.
(Nick, can I get clothes free for having a particular item for, say, 15 years, like my United Way Day of Caring T-shirt - now used exclusively for mowing with its am-I-even-wearing-a-shirt feel? This guy did. My Fruit of the Loom treasure dates "May 6, 1996" in faded red on the front. Got to be worth something to their PR department.)
If RNKD can't help me beat consignment and Sally's prices, $72 vs $78 won't make much of a difference for a frugal (and rare) shopper like me.
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Read the original article here.
Read more...
Sayable Design
If you aren't looking, I still say check her out, and here's why:
When you remain within the confines of screen size and follow the path of website-owning masses, you typically get no more than a visual re-shuffling of CSS and pieces of code moved here and there until they please you. It's like having seven items to hang on the living room wall but only room for six. So you lay them out on the floor, moving and looking, rotating and looking, measuring and looking. In the end, you hang what you like where you like it. Fair enough, but Lore said heck with wall size. Maybe she said, What wall? I'll hang eleven items if I please.
I remember listening to a Disney employee who gave a talk about doing a lot with little. The company had purchased a large sum of acreage and told the design team, "Put something here." The team asked, "You mean like a theme park?" to which Disney replied, "Whatever you want."
I would have thought theme park too - an understandable mental boundary. Yet for creative types, boundaries need to be mobile. Adam and Eve had a garden full of ingredients and God said, "Mix something here." It amazes me that by Genesis 4, there were already "tools of bronze and iron" and early versions of musical instruments. I don't know how much time elapsed in those few chapters, but seriously? We started with a garden and ended up with harps?
Mind-boggling.
Okay, Lore didn't make a harp out of stuff she mined from the earth, but she did something fun and you should go see it. Sayable Design. Read more...
Git aht!
Dr. Barbara Johnstone is a linguistics professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Of all things, she specializes in Pittsburghese. You might be tempted to say, Git aht! but let me assure you that she does.
Few cities have so notable a concentration of verbal and grammatical peculiarities that an esteemed teacher could find enough to study over the course of a decade or so, let alone with a colleague. Pittsburgh, however, is one of those few. You can read more about Johnstone's observations at The Pittsburgh Speech & Society Project, or read this recent highlight of her work which includes a three-minute video with examples. Or, for plain old fun, visit the informal version at Pittsburghese.com. Type in a note and have it instantly translated into Pittsburghese.
Rosetta Stone, look aht, an I ain't jaggin!
Okay, what's the point? What used to be a normal product of immigrant communication has become an identity marker for natives and non-natives of Pittsburgh alike. I grew up south of the city and yet came to love funny words like nebby and gumbands and yinz. Put me in a room with other Pittsburgh fans and we'll go on with a language all our own. Yet, it isn't our own. The PR magicians didn't launch this. We adopted it. Pittsburgh just kept on being Pittsburgh and friends of the city caught on. It helps that we like the place. A hole in south-western Pennsylvania most likely would have failed to gain attention beyond the locals.
The Post-Gazette article about Johnstone's work struck me because I love language and have an affinity toward Pittsburgh, but also because there's something powerful about having influence in the world that comes simply from being entertained by your own oddities. So here's my invitation to join in the fun:
If yinz ever visit yoor relations near da burgh, git off da caach 'n meet me at Permani Brudders fer a sammitch and pop. Bring yer bumbershoot if it looks like its gonna rain. Meybe we'll even ketch a Stiller game.
Buckley's Mixture
I learned about this medicine at Larry Hehn's blog today and was immediately glad to find Buckley's award-winning ad slogans. Here's a favorite: "People swear by it. And at it."
Larry's post is about New Year's resolutions and the tough, often distasteful, discipline it takes to achieve them. Ease and comfort don't produce much in the way of results. Buckley's, however, makes a good point. Besides the honest advertising (see his post for more examples, and others here), which is delightfully refreshing, I'm glad for this reminder that hard times are ahead for those want to grow and heal.
No getting around that. I'm closing in on 40 and feeling the need for worse-tasting medicine, if for no other reason than I simply can't imagine reaching 80 with the same regrets I have now. New medicine is on its way in 2011. Read more...
The Sneetches and Other Branding Stories
I have two resources for you today. One is by Paul Chaplin called "Satisfaction Guaranteed." It's about Trump branding and what's good and bad about associating products with ideas.
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| From The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Suess |
Eventually the Sneetches become like those who mature and take pride in being social bridge builders. "He had friends from every walk of life” is pronounced at funerals like a badge of honor. Parents of such teenagers question what their crossover kid might be up to, and Pharisees wash their hands of such mixing, but in the end, embracing a range of brands rewards us.
Here’s the thing about these folks. They find ways to push through the thin layers of brands because they recognize brand value where it counts. They love truth and meaningful expression. In their eyes — and here I’m speaking from the occasional personal experience — the Creator becomes more recognizably creative. God becomes bigger as a Brand Manager who delights in the full-range expression of God’s self. Read More...
Both come from this week's edition of Catapult Magazine. See the table of contents for other good (or better, depending on your tastes) advertising-related reads. Read more...
Know your numbers? Try this brand quiz.
I found the following quiz today while reading about the Gap logo debacle. What brand is related to the number 711? That may be an easy one. How about 40? 31? 409?
I got six out of 20 without thinking too hard. Take a look below and see if you can beat me. Find the answers and related trivia here.
Clear copy. Less clear vision.
Some of you know we bought a house in May. It was a foreclosure and our particular loan process took two full months. We finally closed on July 6 and began a good bit of renovation. I took the first week and half off in order to tackle the bigger items, while friends have been in and out to help. For the past two weeks, I've sanded or cleaned or painted every night, often till midnight.
Sleeping is off. Eating is off. Blogging is way off. As tired as I am, however, I feel energized to push on toward our mid-August goal of moving in. We'll see if that can happen.
Being away from New Breed of Advertisers has had an interesting effect on me. I'm so connected to the house right now that I'm only doing what I have to at work. That isn't my normal operation. Typically, I do what I have to and also try to keep a number of items on the table that I want to do. It's the proactive, creative element of work that sustains me, but I don't have time for it in the present.
Normally, I dream of helping folks do their advertising work well. This summer you all (and other readers) are hardly on my mind. I can't help it. And even though I've watched some TV to help me unwind at night, I haven't seen much that catches my attention anyway. I'm bored by most of the ads, though I'm sure I'll mention a few sooner or later.
In the meantime, here are two bits of copy that I heard, I think, on the radio. They don't get much clearer (and cleverer) than these:
Redwing - "Find the boots that fit your feet, job and wallet."
Trojan - "You can't wait to get it on."
If you care to, pray for me to finish this house project well, and to find clarity in my service to the advertising industry this year.
My thanks. Read more...
Oreo: Milk's Favorite Summer Dip
If you're an Oreo fan, I mentioned them one other time here and the picture I featured may be the most beautiful and tantalizing cookie photo I've ever seen.
Here's to a refreshing summer! Read more...
Chasing Cool in Calling
From Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today's Cluttered Marketplace:
Remember, the etymology of the word brand comes from the Old English for 'burn.' It's defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as 'a mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership.' A brand comes from a long-standing commitment and vision. It's not a reverse-engineering process quickly generated through trendy gimmicks."
I try to commit to the worthwhile. Life is too short and people too important for me to waste time and talent manufacturing what I'll regret branding. I want my stamp to count. Gimmicks tempt me but I know better than to invite them into the work I've been called to do.
Okay, so maybe I occaaaasionally give in to a gimmick. Perhaps you'll tell me if it's an unfitting one? Read more...
What you see is what you cry about
Alice and I went to Target the other night for a few odds (Zhu Zhu pet) and ends (toilet paper). Heh heh.
She's six and wants good toilet paper, it seems, as she almost cried when I picked the store brand. She had made her own selection and I wondered, What's so great about Charmin? I looked through the crinkled plastic and couldn't discern any noticeable difference. And both packages weighed the same.
Then the light kicked on and I had her walk down the long row of brands to tell me what she saw on each of them:
"Bear."
"Puppy."
"More bears."
"Baby on a cloud."
And on my frugal choice? Nothing.
Dove Men+Care and Fight Clubs
Looks like the drumbeat of John Eldredge's hyper-masculine book, Wild at Heart, is gaining ground. Segments of the evangelical church have been calling men to become Bravehearts and Gladiators ever since the book hit the bookstores and now we have to contend with the rising popularity of fight club ministries. Unbelievable.
Meanwhile, Dove is helping men get in touch with their feminine side with Men+Care. Here's the ad they launched through The Ogilvy Group in yesterday's Superbowl.
What's a guy to do?
Related articles:
A Jesus for Real Men
Men (Manly Men)
Hat tip to CaPC for the fight club article.
Personal Brand Insecurity
I have a branding dilemma and I'm not sure if it's something minor or a symptom of something major. Ready for this?
Should I use caps or lower-case?
You can roll your eyes all you want, but it's a question that's starting to bother me. Stay with me for a minute. The internet has plenty of presentation norms and I know what most of them are. At the very least I know that web pages for business executives have significantly different norms than chat messages between teens.
case for lower
but i don't want to use capital letters. lower-case is more relaxed; more personal. it's how i want you to feel when you come over for dinner. you might think it's the finest table and tastiest food, but i want you to wander around the house if you'd like, get something from the fridge, or laugh out loud. lower-case is more my style.
lower-case is also easier, which means it's what i'd rather do. same point, less time.
Case for Upper
But I don't want to use lower-case either - at least not for writing. When I read through a dozen comments on a blog and one is written in lower-case, I skip that one or else put a lower value on it. I can't help thinking the writer is less educated. How arrogant, you say. Well I'll add hypocritical, too, since I e-mail almost exclusively in lower-case!
Caps are also more professional and readable. I can imagine my second-grader trying to read a chapter book with no capital letters. Talk about run-ons.
A diagnosis
For you non-analyzing types, you can't believe this is anything but a joke. But for me, a writer and speaker who mixes with a variety of audiences, this is only partly funny. I don't toss and turn or seek counseling over it, but it crosses my mind subtly every time I log on and start to type.
This constant e-wareness of whether to use caps or lower-case is why I think it is a symptom of something more serious. See, I'm the guy who reads Henri Nouwen's books, like Reaching Out or The Genesee Diary, and says, "Henri knows me." I'm the guy who reads Brennan Manning's Abba's Child and passes it on to all my friends. (Notice the link? I'm passing it along. Check out the others while you're at it.) I think I'm suffering from a case of Personal Brand Insecurity and I'm sure it's affecting my work.
PBI isn't just about what letter forms I should use. It is about searching for who I am, trying to find my voice, and wanting to care less about people's impressions and more about what matters. In C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, the demon uncle gives the following advice to his apprenticing demon nephew:
"The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring twopence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the 'best' people, the 'right' food, the 'important' books. I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions."
As I think about branding, advertising and all aspects of marketing, I wonder how someone like me could do it consistently and honestly while suffering from PBI. I applaud all of you who can.
Any advice? (About caps or lower-case, I mean, although PBI counsel is welcomed, too.)
What do you think, Mara?
In February I read a book review which said this about the author:
“She likens the evangelical movement's success not to some historic spiritual awakening or God's hand at work, but to the use of secular marketing tactics.”Because of my evangelical roots (and branches) and my professional interest in advertising, what else could I say but, Go on, tell me more.
And tell me more she did. For the third New Breed of Advertisers interview, I’d like to introduce you to Mara Einstein and her new book, Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age (Routledge, 2008).
Dr. Einstein has been working in or writing about the media industry for the past 20 years. She has enjoyed stints as an executive at NBC, MTV Networks, and at major advertising agencies working on such accounts as Miller Lite, Uncle Ben’s and Dole Foods. Her first book, Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership and the FCC (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), was the cause for much debate when research from this work was used by the FCC as the basis for redefining the media ownership rules. In addition, Mara has written for Newsday and Broadcasting & Cable as well as having her work appear in academic journals.Mara is an Associate Professor of media studies at Queens College as well as being an adjunct Associate Professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University. She has a doctorate in media ecology from New York University, she holds an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern and a BFA from Boston University.
She is currently working on a new book about girls and the media as well as continuing her research on religion and media.
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NBoA: Why college students? I mean, you were a marketing executive for three publicly-traded companies.
Mara: If I understand your question correctly, I think you are asking why I walked away from a high-paying, "glamorous" career to work in the trenches of academia. Some of that was personal, but I also felt incredibly stunted professionally and intellectually. I was doing the same sort of work year after year and wanted to do something more interesting and more fulfilling. I also couldn't reconcile the idea that getting people to watch more television, which was my job, was the best use of my time. I found that I am better suited, as well as better qualified, to criticize the media. Who knows better about what goes on in the sausage factory than the person making the sausage?
NBoA: I've heard students say they'll work for a religious or public service organization because it's safer for them morally and ethically. Better sausage, if you will. How informed is this perspective when it comes to marketing?
Mara: It's a mixed bag, and it really does depend on the organization that you work for. Is it okay to "sell your soul" if the end justifies the means? That's a question people have to ask themselves every day. For example, my current research is about exploring the question, "What happens when you market service?" If you look at something like the RED campaign (Bono/Gap), you might say, "What a great idea” because it gets people to give to African charities through a painless, consumer-based methodology. But we have to question if that is a good thing. Is marketing a t-shirt the best way to raise money for AIDS in Africa? I don't know. I don't think so, but it will be those sorts of issues that your students will face.
NBoA: Speaking of what the students will face, I perused the comments about you at Rate My Professors. At first glance, there seemed to be a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth. But a second glance suggested that you are the professor even the whiners will appreciate most a decade down the professional road. What will they say about you then?
Mara: I never read the site myself. As with everything, you're not going to please everyone, and I teach upwards of 200 students per semester. I'm sure that there are plenty of them that don't like me. That said, I'm not a professor to be a student's friend. I'm there to make sure they learn what they need to know to be a critical thinker in an increasingly complex world.
For every student who doesn't like me (and let's face it, those are usually the students who don't do the work necessary to succeed in my classroom), there's another student who's sending me an email thanking me for everything they learned in my classes. My best students over the years now have successful jobs in the media and they return to talk to my current classes. Those are the ones that keep me coming back to work day after day.
NBoA: I find it interesting (and courageous) that you are an agnostic, genuinely seeking religious truth, and at the same time a scholar who couldn't miss the marketing and persuasion techniques of religion if you were blind-folded. How does this work itself out for you personally and spiritually, or does it?
Mara: I cover this issue extensively in the preface to the book, but I'll see if I can do justice in the short space here. I was a marketer for almost 20 years before becoming an academic over a decade ago. Seeing marketing in religion was, and is, obvious to me. While I am currently agnostic (much of that thinking I attribute to having done the work of writing this book), I have been a "seeker" for more than 30 years. My beliefs are in line with those of Sam Harris. He talks in his book, End of Faith, about the many mystical experiences that exist that we cannot explain. We should do what we can to foster those experiences, but established religious institutions may not be the best way to achieve this outcome.
NBoA: That last line may unsettle a few of my visitors (It certainly gets my attention), but I respect your perspective. It also raises a question about how to approach your book. Should readers see Brands of Faith as analysis, diagnosis, advice, or warning?
Mara: I wrote the book as a critique of the current religious marketplace. However, many people – particularly people involved with religious institutions – have read it as a sort of "how-to" of religious marketing. That's okay, but I think there are other books that do that better.I would hope that people who read Brands of Faith will understand better why the sacred and the secular have merged. There isn't a culture war going on so much as a re-negotiation between these two spaces. Moreover, faith is not going away; it is being transformed and media has a lot to do with that. Brands of Faith is not meant as a warning. The need to believe in something bigger than ourselves is not disappearing. Rather, the work is a suggestion to re-evaluate established religious institutions as the means for imparting religious/spiritual information.
But, let me say here that I'm not advocating that we dissolve established religious institutions as many of the atheist writers of late have discussed. For many, many people these institutions are a source of strength and fellowship. That said, we should also be open to alternatives to these groups and not pooh-pooh them just because they appear new or different.
NBoA: I don’t think you’re alone on this re-evaluation piece. The significant growth of interest in spirituality outside of the Church confirms it. In fact, David Kinnaman, co-author of unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…and Why It Matters, shows that
"outsiders' most common reaction to the faith [is that] they think Christians no longer represent what Jesus had in mind, that Christianity in our society is not what it was meant to be."
How is this a marketing issue?
Mara: When I interviewed people for the book, one of the issues that came up was that people were too involved with having a personal relationship with Jesus while paying very little attention to what Jesus cared about – things like feeding the hungry and helping the needy. Many evangelical groups promote the feel-good relationship while never talking about traditional topics like salvation and sin. That's marketing – showing consumers what will get them in the door and obscuring the things that might deter them.
NBoA: On an NPR podcast, you hinted at the potential danger in this showing/obscuring bit. You said,
"Marketing is about understanding who your target audience is and then creating a product that is going to serve them. Well, that's fine if you're talking about a car, or you're talking about a computer. But with a faith practice or with a religion, at what point do you start changing the faith...?"
Great question. I'd love to hear your answer.
Mara: I try to stay away from answering this sort of question because I am a marketing and media scholar and not a theologian. What I would say is that it is possible to change the packaging of the faith (what most megachurches do) while not fundamentally changing the faith itself. What I mean by that is you can create more interesting church services and you can use podcasts and you can create magazine/Bibles like Revolve that will speak to today's religious "consumer" and still be true to the teachings of your faith.
NBoA: I agree that products like Revolve don’t fundamentally change the faith. But isn’t the obvious co-opting of popular marketing tactics, as seen in these two images, part of the Church’s branding problem?
Mara: No, I don't think so. I'm probably one of the few academics who would say that marketing religion isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's probably a necessity. The first rule of marketing is to get consumers where they already are. If that means magazines, TV, the Internet or rock concerts, I don't have a problem with that. The issue is what happens after the seeker comes through the door. (More on this below.)Religious organizations should brand themselves. They need to understand who they are, and they need to communicate that to their congregation. Having a brand allows organizations to coalesce around a shared mission statement which becomes a vision for everything the institution does. This question is at the heart of my book and is, frankly, too complex to answer in this small space. I encourage your readers to pick up my book for a more thoughtful analysis.
NBoA: I have a link to your book below. For many American followers of Jesus, we’re so used to church marketing that we probably couldn’t pick it out of a line-up. From your perspective, what aspect is the most annoying? (Coincidentally, mine happens to be Revolve and the entire line of magazine/Bibles associated with it.)
Mara: The most irritating thing about religious marketing is when religious institutions are hypocritical. When they promote one thing and in reality are something else completely. Let's use an obvious example here: Ted Haggard. Here is someone who promoted contempt for gays and lesbians when in reality it turned out that "the lady doth protest too much." I won't even get into the hypocrisy of promoting love while condemning a whole group outright. This hypocrisy is not only true of churches. (I'm an equal opportunity critic.) I would put plenty of New Age organizations in this group as well, and I'm sure there are plenty more that I don't even know about.
The bottom line is that nothing will make a consumer angrier than believing a product is one thing only to find out after walking through the door that they’ve been bamboozled by slick marketing. Remember the old adage from David Ogilvy, "Your consumer isn't stupid. She's your wife."
NBoA: I just talked with a student who left the Church for that very reason. Nobody enjoys the bait and switch. Last question, Mara. My hope is to encourage a New Breed of Advertisers, which presumes there's an Old Breed whose ways are often misdirected. What is an important redirection for the advertising student who wants to love her neighbor and sell him something, too?
Mara: Don't walk away from your own ethics. For example, if an ad depicts women in a denigrating way in order to sell a fifth of vodka, that's just simply not okay. You know in your heart (and perhaps your soul) what's right and wrong. Never create advertising or marketing that you disagree with, even when a paycheck is at stake. And, if you do have to walk away, your walking away will be the loudest and possibly most effective statement you can make. Then, go out and create your own agency and start doing the work that will make this world a better place for all of us.
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Thank you, Mara, for taking the time to share with us. Your experience as a seeker and expertise as a marketer provide substance for me (and others) to chew on. Have a delightful semester raising a new breed of advertisers.
Readers, what do you think? Take a minute to post your comments and questions.
Links:
Mara Einstein’s book, Brands of Faith
Mara’s blog
Mara’s podcast interview with NPR
David Kinnaman’s book, unChristian
RED campaign
"The lady doth protest too much...." (Okay, so I needed to look it up. It's been a while since high school, and maybe it has been for you, too.) Read more...
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